To discover any unpublished personal letters whatsoever by Josh Billings is significant enough. To discover letters with significant comments on his career, glimpses of his personality, and references to specific conditions and problems of the lecture system in nineteenth-century America is a singularly remarkable find. Of the three newly found letters² reprinted and discussed below, two concern the most demanding facet of Billings’ career—comic lecturing—while the third reveals some of his literary techniques and states his purpose as a humorist.

The two letters dealing with Billings’ lecturing belong to the years 1880 and 1881, reflecting, thus, not a novice in the field but rather a seasoned performer tried in the ways of the lecture system and fully knowledgeable of its merits and hardships. The earlier and most significant epistle was written from New York and dated October 18, the year 1880 having been added later by another hand below the signature "Josh." The letter reads,

Pugh⁴

The advance booking for late January, the sale of twelve nights in Illinois, the $100 fee for a Chicago appearance all testify to Billings’ popularity on the circuit. The lecture program outlined in the letter details his customary approach and method of organization while performing and includes some of his most frequently discussed subjects. He gave his lectures catchall titles such as "Putty and Varnish," "Buty and the Beasts," "What I Know About Hotels," and his favorite, "Milk," and then

covered a multitude of disparate subjects in the course of an evening. Each subject, delivered in Billings’ terse, epigrammatic style, would consume anywhere from a very few to ten or fifteen minutes of a sixty to ninety minute lecture before giving way to another topic. The-nine items listed in this letter are quite typical of the range of subjects he would treat. His program includes several blocks of sayings interspersed among topics such as Long Branch (New Jersey), one of Billings’ favorite seaside resorts; Patience, a subject he usually treated rather seriously; Answers to Correspondents, usually playful answers to readers of his New York Weekly column⁹ (or hypothetical readers concocted by Billings); various hotel experiences; and then Marriage, one of his favorite topics, of which he spoke both sacredly and sarcastically. Billings wrote each lecture topic out in full; and on lecture night, while seated, read from the prepared text, the resulting humor heightened by his appearance—the dead-pan look on his naturally solemn face, the unusually long hair and scraggly beard adorning his massive head and face, the black suit without a tie.¹⁰

The second letter concerning lecturing is dated January 19, 1881, and is again written from New York. Josh briefly and curtly responds to an unidentified recipient—obviously a lyceum booking agent of some sort—who has cancelled Billings’ engagements:

Care of Carleton¹¹

Josh

The letter, of course, registers the difficulties faced by the traveling lecturer: cancellations, great distances to be traveled, and inclement weather (since Josh would choose April if he could re-schedule). Aside from again showing Billings in the elite hundred dollar class and displaying his not surprising anger over having a block of engagements cancelled, the letter reveals something further. The emphatic underscorings throughout seem to suggest not only a Billings peeved over the cancellation, but one tired out in the last third of the grueling lecture season. It is most likely that the last half of the letter is not a bona fide request for re-scheduling, but rather a facetious suggestion as to what would constitute the ideal schedule. He would speak in Philadelphia for proximity to New York (and also, perhaps, with a hope to be received in "brotherly love" by the city thus tagged), he would travel in April for good weather, and he would have

his $100 top pay to boot. In reality, not only were long distances standard fare for lecturers, but the circuit usually ended in March, an inclement month in the Northeast. April, then, would normally not even be a possibility, thus again suggesting that Billings’ requested schedule is mere wishful thinking. He seems to be saying with a shrug and vain wish, "I’m tired and want only the best conditions—here they are!" He probably never expected them to be met.

The third letter has nothing specific to say about Billings’ lecturing, but it does contain an important statement of his aims as a humorist; and it also illustrates the epigrammatic style and moralistic tendency of his writings. Written fairly early in his career as writer and speaker—1868, before he joined Redpath’s Bureau—the statement of purpose in the second paragraph shows a man thoroughly sure of his mission, an objective Billings never lost sight of throughout his long career.

The humor of paragraph one—the understatement of "simply hint, that I intend to be with you" and the witty paradox concerning "misfortune"—gives way quickly to the more serious utterances of paragraphs two and three. Billings’ declaration of purpose in the second paragraph is the clearest and most direct on record, an exact statement of his classic design as a humorist to please and instruct simultaneously. The last paragraph illustrates the epigrammatic and moralistic nature of his writings, both essential qualities in his works and lectures.

In summary, all three letters illustrate typical aspects of Josh Billings’ works, his platform career, and his personality. They are important testimonials by a man who, so far as is known, did not often use the personal letter to express the details of his occupation, his objectives, and his frustrations.

   ¹Besides a few letters quoted wholly or in part by Cyril Clemens in Josh Billings, Yankee Humorist (Webster Groves, Mo.: International Mark Twain Society, 1932), only twenty personal letters of any significance—other than the ones reprinted here—are available. These letters are located in the libraries of St. John’s Seminary, Indiana University, Harvard, University of Rochester, Duke University, Haverford College, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia, and in the New York Public Library.       ²The letters turned up on the open market during the summer of 1971, and I purchased them for my Billings collection.
   ³Quoted in Clemens’ Josh Billings, p. 73.
   ⁴I have been unable to identify Pugh specifically, but he was obviously a booking agent—perhaps with Redpath—for traveling lecturers. Two other letters to him from Billings are extant, both dealing with future lecture engagements. These letters are in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
   ⁵Josh made the remark in his column for the New York Weekly, 10 February l870, p.3.
   ⁶For these and other complaints see Billings’ columns in the New York Weekly for 6 July 1874, p.4; 1 September 1873, p. 8; 6 February 1868, p:3; 8 July 1872, p. 4; 9 April 1877, p. 3; 30 March 1871, p. 8. Two of the best essays on lecturing appearing first in the Weekly are reprinted in The Complete Works of Josh Billings (New York: G. W. Dillingham Co., 1888): "Hints to Comik Lekturers," pp. 89-92, and "Advice Tew Lectur Kommittys," pp. 373-75.
   ⁷"Hints Tew Comik Leckturers," New York Weekly, 30 March 1871, p. 8, and Complete Works, p. 89.
   ⁸New York Weekly, 10 February 1870, p. 3.
   ⁹Billings was employed by the Weekly in May 1867. F. S. Smith and F. S. Street, proprietors, proudly advertised him as an "exclusive." They carried Billings’ popular column the remainder of his lifetime and even continued it for a few years after his death.
   ¹⁰For the best accounts of Billings’ mannerisms and appearance on the platform, see Chapter VII, "In the Lecture Field," of Cyril Clemens’ Josh Billings, Yankee Humorist; Will M. Clemens, Famous Funny Fellows (Cleveland: William W. Williams, 1882), p. 55; Melville D. Landon, Kings of the Platform and Pulpit (New York: The Werner Co., 1895), pp. 80ff.; and J. B. Pond, Eccentricities of Genius (New York: G. W. Dillingham Co., [1900]), pp. 185-87.
   ¹¹G. W. Carleton & Co. of New York was Billings’ publisher.
   ¹²Abbott is unidentified.